Sure, for various values of unethical. Why not use more precise language? Is conflating ethical issues a good use of time? The author's opinion is obvious but poorly stated.
Or maybe we have to read the article to find his opinion:
> Debating whether Moses’ bridges discriminate is an unhelpful distraction. But can a bridge be discriminatory? Absolutely.
Personally, I thought the author was a bit offensive in that he kept suggesting his own values should be reflected in good design and he couldn't seem to accept that there are other opinions as valuable as his own.
what it means to have values is that you don't accept that the negation of those values is as valuable as they are
i don't like the taste of liver. but i accept that other people do like liver, and that their enjoyment is just as worthy of respect as my distaste for it. so it's not a value, just a preference
i don't like racism, either. i am aware that other people do like it, but i believe that their feelings on this matter are worthy of disrespect. that is precisely because my rejection of racism is a question of values
I stopped reading when the author stated that The Trolley Problem is problematic because it 'has bad choice architecture.' Not everything possible in human experience is designed.
The Trolley Problem is not constrained to human design. The author pretends that it is. Their reaction to the issue with self-driving cars illustrates this.
I think you’ve misunderstood the thought exercise. Reality doesn’t design levers. The lever is a metaphor for a human designed system, and the point is not to cast you as a simple lever operator.
A bridge if built a certain way can become a wall. And walls have their special spot in history for some of the worst things that ever happened.
So yeah, with the right (or rather: wrong) mindset you can make bridges unethical. I'd argue you could make anything unethical if you tackle it with enough destructive energy.
The fascinating thing with the right is, that their goals¹ are so unethical, they know that just openly defending why you did a certain thing won't fly. So it is always some harmless excuse, always somebody elses fault, always by accident rather than by design. While the rest of society takes truth, open discourse and compromise as ways of finding common ground, these people see truth and discourse as a weakness, they would rather rule than represent.
¹: getting "rid" of people they have othered, while finding new people to other so people stay unified (which is not a sustainable approach as history has shown)
Also calls to mind the expression "wrong side of the tracks", which (I believe) originates directly from the idea you have a railway keeping the poor away from the rich.
Being America, of course, race takes forefront rather than poverty.
> At best, ethics are a responsibility shouldered by individual designers; at worst, they aren’t considered at all.
This concept of shouldering bothers me. I imagine a thought process like "as a designer, I am highly influential! I must carry the burden of morality on my shoulders for the good of humanity! (And possibly animals too, it's my duty to decide things like that!) It's all up to me! I'm so important!"
To the extent that this is true, the situation is aggravated by being tasked with designing public works, where pleasing everybody is a fool's errand and opinions cause trouble. But I don't want a designer (perhaps one who has stumbled into wielding government authority) to try to take it all on. I want designers to think about morality, sure, and certainly to do what they personally care about, but not to go shopping for it with a view to "what good can I do here", because that would just be being a do-gooder. If your reaction to discovering that your project has an ethical dimension is to duck and cover, I think you have good instincts.
> we need to make ethics an intentional part of our process. Not just to avoid unintended harm, but also to do good.
But this sounds awful. I don't want designers to be the arbitrators of good, because I don't think they'd be any good at it. Other than the personal beliefs that a designer has been incubating for a lifetime, I don't think other people's moral quandaries are a designer's business, and I don't think they should be encouraged to be bigger-headed.
In fact I don't want anybody to be the arbitrator of good, which is something the article alludes to by mentioning how difficult it is (although it doesn't seem to want to admit that nudge theory exists). I want a marketplace of small, uninfluential decisions and diverse choices by users, not centrally managed megaprojects where the designer has substantial influence on public thought. I want an almost subliminal culture of uncontroversial ethical choices to emerge naturally, so that we all learn to hold ethical values as a result of millions of unimportant design-idiots making foolish choices that may succeed or may be shot down. Fortunately, this is how it already mostly works.
18 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 57.6 ms ] thread> Debating whether Moses’ bridges discriminate is an unhelpful distraction. But can a bridge be discriminatory? Absolutely.
Personally, I thought the author was a bit offensive in that he kept suggesting his own values should be reflected in good design and he couldn't seem to accept that there are other opinions as valuable as his own.
I didn’t notice that? What are the values the author is pushing?
Other than the central thesis that ethics should be considered as part of the design process.
i don't like the taste of liver. but i accept that other people do like liver, and that their enjoyment is just as worthy of respect as my distaste for it. so it's not a value, just a preference
i don't like racism, either. i am aware that other people do like it, but i believe that their feelings on this matter are worthy of disrespect. that is precisely because my rejection of racism is a question of values
So yeah, with the right (or rather: wrong) mindset you can make bridges unethical. I'd argue you could make anything unethical if you tackle it with enough destructive energy.
The fascinating thing with the right is, that their goals¹ are so unethical, they know that just openly defending why you did a certain thing won't fly. So it is always some harmless excuse, always somebody elses fault, always by accident rather than by design. While the rest of society takes truth, open discourse and compromise as ways of finding common ground, these people see truth and discourse as a weakness, they would rather rule than represent.
¹: getting "rid" of people they have othered, while finding new people to other so people stay unified (which is not a sustainable approach as history has shown)
Also calls to mind the expression "wrong side of the tracks", which (I believe) originates directly from the idea you have a railway keeping the poor away from the rich.
Being America, of course, race takes forefront rather than poverty.
This concept of shouldering bothers me. I imagine a thought process like "as a designer, I am highly influential! I must carry the burden of morality on my shoulders for the good of humanity! (And possibly animals too, it's my duty to decide things like that!) It's all up to me! I'm so important!"
To the extent that this is true, the situation is aggravated by being tasked with designing public works, where pleasing everybody is a fool's errand and opinions cause trouble. But I don't want a designer (perhaps one who has stumbled into wielding government authority) to try to take it all on. I want designers to think about morality, sure, and certainly to do what they personally care about, but not to go shopping for it with a view to "what good can I do here", because that would just be being a do-gooder. If your reaction to discovering that your project has an ethical dimension is to duck and cover, I think you have good instincts.
> we need to make ethics an intentional part of our process. Not just to avoid unintended harm, but also to do good.
But this sounds awful. I don't want designers to be the arbitrators of good, because I don't think they'd be any good at it. Other than the personal beliefs that a designer has been incubating for a lifetime, I don't think other people's moral quandaries are a designer's business, and I don't think they should be encouraged to be bigger-headed.
In fact I don't want anybody to be the arbitrator of good, which is something the article alludes to by mentioning how difficult it is (although it doesn't seem to want to admit that nudge theory exists). I want a marketplace of small, uninfluential decisions and diverse choices by users, not centrally managed megaprojects where the designer has substantial influence on public thought. I want an almost subliminal culture of uncontroversial ethical choices to emerge naturally, so that we all learn to hold ethical values as a result of millions of unimportant design-idiots making foolish choices that may succeed or may be shot down. Fortunately, this is how it already mostly works.